Thursday, January 7, 2010

Tweets from CNN staffers say that Ali Velshi is moving up to become an anchor. According to Rick Sanchez, Ali will host weekdays from 1-3pmET (leading into Sanchez' new program.) Ali will host from the NY studio Atlanta. [Sorry, I misread a tweet!] More details to follow...

On CNN, a New Show for Ali Velshi

Beginning Jan. 18, CNN is assigning two hours of anchoring to its chief business correspondent, Ali Velshi.

CNN is remodeling its afternoon schedule, assigning two hours of anchoring to its chief business correspondent, Ali Velshi.

The cable news channel informed staff members on Thursday that Mr. Velshi, well-known for his coverage of the financial collapse, would anchor the 1 to 3 p.m. hours beginning Jan. 18.

That same day, Rick Sanchez’s 3 p.m. program will expand into the 4 p.m. hour and be renamed “Rick’s List,” in a previously announced change.

“My goal is to make topics more accessible” to viewers, Mr. Velshi said in a telephone interview Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Velshi’s mantra on CNN has been “breaking it down.”

“What I want to do is take what I’ve been doing in business news for the last two years and translate that to all of the other topics” CNN covers, he said. “Whatever the challening news stories of the day are, I’m going to try to use my specific tools and methods for telling the news to make everything a little more understandable and a little more accessible to the viewer.”

Kyra Phillips currently anchors from 1 to 3 p.m. The hours will remain named “CNN Newsroom” for now.

(Interesting to note that Kyra was in NY this morning. She appeared on the set of American Morning to discuss her report on the "Yoga Cult.")

i have to say there are people at CNN who canstop this by not letting it happen in the firstplace.CNN is in trouble morning, day and night.I think it is a huge mistake in the era of 2 femaleanchors at the network level that a major cablenews network would get rid of women on thedayshift.It is just no smart.